


Intrude

by Thene



Category: Metal Gear
Genre: Canon InJokes, M/M, Rivalslash, love stories that are not about love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-11-22
Updated: 2009-11-25
Packaged: 2017-10-03 13:31:29
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 16,404
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18661
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Thene/pseuds/Thene
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>From joining FOXHOUND to quitting the unit, from meeting his first friend to losing him, from serving under Big Boss to shooting him to knowing what the man was to him.  Slash, Snake/Fox.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. KRONOS

**Author's Note:**

> This fic was partly inspired by an amazing fill on the Metal Gear Kink meme, [here](http://community.livejournal.com/mgs_kink/488.html?thread=1256#t1256). I was so gutpunched by that story that I wanted to write it a prequel, so I did.

David hated leave.

Every other soldier he'd met looked forward to it. Talked endlessly about getting back to their hometowns, their families. When David was away from the battlefield, he had nowhere to go. So he looked for an apartment - he didn't care where, so long as it was cheap and nowhere near New Mexico, where he'd lived when he was a kid.

He'd grown up in a so-called 'government facility' - an orphanage, full of abandoned kids who'd never been adopted, never would be and weren't going anywhere except an early grave. With the encouragement of every adult he knew, he'd joined the military when he was sixteen and quickly shunted himself into Special Forces, finding a place in an ODA for diving specialists - a division that had been a great fucking use during the Gulf War, so he'd branched out his skills a lot. His major recommended him for FOXHOUND in '94. It was a step up in the world - more money, fewer rules, and a much more elite personnel - but meant little sense to him. The officer had never liked David, so he figured that rather than a promotion, it was just a way to get him gone. They always told him that he wasn't a team player. FOXHOUND agents worked alone, or autonomously in squads of four, so maybe that was where he belonged.

He wasn't lonely, exactly. Other people just weren't worth the bother.

He was on leave - between positions, really - for a couple of weeks right after he'd been accepted to FOXHOUND. That Thursday, he read in the newspaper that Big Boss had come home to America and reinstated himself as FOXHOUND's leader. There was an editorial about the legendary commander, and his activities with FOXHOUND in the 70s, and with his own mercenary corps in the 80s. David wondered how much of it was true, how much was guesswork and how much was just copied from conspiracist circulars. The writer seemed rather in awe of him, and keen to say that this was all very good for the USA. Why he'd left, and why he'd now returned, the article did not seek to explain.

 

*

FOXHOUND's HQ was much as rumour had described it; hidden in an isolated part of the mountains, unreachable by roads, and mostly underground. It was also about a thousand miles north from where rumour claimed it was - so much for that. David was ferried there from Seattle in a near-empty chopper; just him, one more rookie and a newly hired technician, plus a pilot who himself was an agent returning from leave. The Air Force personnel had treated their ensemble with a frosty awe; FOXHOUND were the best and the strangest the US military had to offer. Their looks were like a chill wind inside his mind.

When he reached base, he found that everything was about Big Boss. He was fairly glad that he and other recent recruits didn't rate much attention, and wanted to settle in with as little fuss as possible. He almost liked it - time spent on so many different skills, a room shared with just one other agent, little hierarchy aside from the arcane codename system. He was 'Solid Snake'; quite a lofty beginning, maybe because he'd done well on the intelligence test. He hoped to prove he was worth it, so he would be sent back into battle.

His roommate, Stalker Leopard, was the kind of recent recruit who was far too thrilled to have an even more recent recruit to encroach upon. The man was a spy, an ear-to-the-floor type who he knew must be good at what he did, because he was in FOXHOUND, but damn if he wasn't annoying. He was always listening to life, desperately. David traded his cigarettes for Leopard's stories, because it was better than leaving Leopard free to ask questions.

There were a lot of legends surrounding FOXHOUND, considering what a tiny group it was; even including the tech and medical staff, there were fewer than a hundred operatives. All the wildest tales were about either Big Boss - their founder who'd walked away long ago, but now reappeared - or about Gray Fox, his lieutenant. There were stories enough to have cost Big Boss an eye five times over, and some said his codename had once been Snake - the same as David's. Unlike most of the other senior officers in FOXHOUND, no one knew his real name. He was just Big Boss; the guy with one eye. Gray Fox's stories had no beginning, as if he'd been the Fox for as long as there'd _been_ a FOXHOUND, which was longer than David had even been alive.

When they were seen around the base, which wasn't that often, they were usually together. Big Boss striding around with a cigar between his lips, talking angrily, hands a-wave, about whatever the business of the day was; Gray Fox beside him, calm and attentive, a machete swinging from his belt as they passed.

David realised that other agents liked to eavesdrop on their rapid-fire conversations, listening for intel gossip and omens of the unit's future. He thought this a little over-conspiratorial, and didn't indulge - surely the two of them always knew who was listening anyway? But when they passed right by him, it was hard to block it out.

_"- advanced bioresearch? That's a hell of a step up from the mud of the Zambezi River. She any good?"_

"Oh, she's good, I'm told she's brilliant. Give it another few years and she'll be doing for you everything Clark does for -"

"I don't want to replicate them. I want to destroy them."

"Yeah, but it'll be a hell of an advantage on where we are now. Just another two, three years -"

"Three years? I don't have three years. I'm not even sure I have now_, Fox - there's only so long we can keep building up before -"_

"We can still buy time. If we don't, her nanomachine research could fall into their hands -"

"We'll do what we can. What's a nanomachine, anyway?"

Maybe once he wasn't a rookie, it would all make more sense.

Big Boss's face unnerved him. Not just because of the patch - he'd seen plenty of half-blind veterans before, and in a way the ones with glass eyes looked far more unnerving. There was just something in the shape of his face that David didn't like. So he'd look at Gray Fox instead, and he decided the agent was well named - his face was sharp, a little worn, and very pale. Freed from military regs, most FOXHOUND agents grew their hair - even David's drill instructor had a long ponytail - but not Fox. His was hardly crewcut, but the thick blond locks stopped neatly at the base of his skull, leaving a fine-shaped neck rising from the black scarf he always wore. It made his face look thinner, more washed out.

He passed Fox in the shower room one morning, and decided that the man simply looked best naked. _Damn_.

 

*

He was doing alright. Might even get a real assignment soon, if only as back-up to three veteran agents. (_'Box duty'_, they called it, though he'd yet to learn why). Sooner the better. He'd got done with being a rookie during the Gulf War, and his skills were as sharp as any of the rest here. He'd been commended for his endurance and his stealth, and his pistol aim was steady. Even better, Master Miller said, Snake knew when _not_ to shoot.

(He was thinking of himself as Solid Snake now. That made things a lot easier. And he liked Miller, who was experienced and kind and strangely lighthearted for someone who'd killed so many people.)

But it wasn't all plain sailing. He was good at a lot of things, but his CQC wasn't even up to FOXHOUND'S B level. And CQC was everything. He could've got away with being bad at almost anything else but that. Master Miller worked on him daily, and Snake made progress, but never really liked having a knife in his hand.

One morning he turned up for one-on-one training at 0800, and was surprised to find Master Miller still wearing his dress uniform. He wondered if he'd done something wrong, but his instructor was grinning at him. "Snake, I think you and me have done enough of this. It's time to turn you over to someone who'll show you more."

He heard a rustling from an ill-lit corner. Big Boss was sat on the bench at the back of the room, taking off his trenchcoat and flexing his hands. Miller left, and Snake's breath caught in his throat.

"Miller says you're good." Big Boss sounded slightly doubtful. He was stretching with surprising flexibility, and Snake mimicked his actions, wondering how painful this was going to be. They were both wearing FOXHOUND sneaking suits, and he could see that the old man's body was at least as fit as his own. There were no compromises for age or weakness in the life of a mercenary, he supposed - just survival or death. "He thinks you've got the right mind for an agent. That when you're out in the field, you'll know how to think like the enemy...only better."

Well, that was dubious praise. "Sir."

"It's not enough, kid." Snake nodded slowly. "You have to feel their reactions, only better. Know their will, only better. It'll take real experience to show you that...but this will do for now."

"Sir."

Big Boss dropped to a crouch, checking the fastenings of his shoes. "We'll meet here for three hours every morning, if I can spare them, until you've learned everything I can teach you. Every hold, every throw - how to use every item in the armoury hand-to-hand effectively. Any questions?"

Snake was silent for a second, wondering if he dared - but the great thing about FOXHOUND was that he'd yet to be reprimanded for asking a question, even if half the answers made no fucking sense. "Yeah, I guess I got one - why?"

His commander looked up at him. "Why what?"

He hadn't raised his voice, but the words sounded dangerous. Big Boss's words often did. Snake ploughed on regardless. "Why CQC? There's a dozen ways of killing I know better than this. If I want to take someone down, I'll do it cleaner with a gun than a knife. Unless you've the luck to catch your target alone, it's got little place in a stealth mission. So why does everyone in FOXHOUND learn it so thoroughly? What's the point?"

For five excruciating seconds he felt like he had his ego in his mouth and it was about to get punched good and hard, but then Big Boss said, "I've been training agents in CQC since before you were born. You're the first one to ever ask me that." He didn't seem displeased. "It's about using your senses to stay alive. _All_ of them. I'm sure you're a good eye with a gun, but you need more than that to survive on the battlefield." His hand touched the patch over his eye. "Much more. You might hear his step before you see it. You might _smell_ trouble before it happens." The old man was on his feet in an instant, moving with shocking lightness. "It's about loyalty, Snake. And remembering what it's like to be alive." Snake raised his arms into a guard.

Big Boss felled him with one kick across the knees.

 

*

His roommate asked about the bruises. It would've been hard not to notice them. Snake explained about the new training routine, and Leopard whistled, acted like he had received some great honour. Like each ache was a medal, rather than a sign that he wasn't up to scratch. He wasn't convinced, and became less so as the days went on. Something - maybe just the ice in his eye, even when Snake was being praised for something - told him that Big Boss disliked him. Maybe even despised him. Big Boss genuinely seemed to like his other agents, and for all they were just expendable tools, got bitter whenever one of them died on a mission. Even other rookies seemed to get a warmer welcome from him than Snake did, though his camaraderie was reserved for the veteran trainers and command staff, and friendship for Gray Fox alone.

So, great. Another CO who probably couldn't wait to be rid of him, only this one had the authority to assign people to incredibly dangerous solo missions. And was pounding the shit out of him every morning in order to teach him CQC. But it was working - he was becoming proficient in it. He'd realised, just from watching Big Boss _move_, so agile at such an age, that he'd been looking for strength in all the wrong places. Muscles were just conduits, fists just messengers; the power was all in the _stance_. He learned to use the floor against an opponent - to take force from the webs of his toes and the balls of his feet, to let the dirt kick _for_ him.

Eventually, the knife in his grip became less of a stranger. Big Boss threw in more weapons, showed him how to stab without dropping his gun - and how to face a man with both those things and take him with no weapon at all. It would've been alright, if the man hadn't clearly hated him. Perhaps that was David's place in life. All the more reason to get back into a war.

Gray Fox would come and go while they were training, passing on urgent news, sometimes bringing an early halt if events were truly disastrous, for which Snake's aching body would be grateful. Sometimes he heard more of their conversations, before and after practices. He didn't try too hard to follow the thread, but he liked hearing Fox's deep, clear voice.

_"- rough maybe, but I wouldn't be doing him any favours if I let it slide."_

"I see, Boss. So you think he's a spy? A la-li-lu-le-lo_?"_

"No. But I bet you anything they put him up to this."

"Why?"

"They like patterns lately, Fox. Programs. It might be all he's got left -"

"Sure hope so. A man with a pattern is easy to destroy."

"Easy to destroy, huh? We have too many patterns of our own. Need to break them, before someone else does it for us."

"Aye. So are you going to tell him?"

"No."

"You told the other one. Which is it, anyway?"

"Seventy-two. The recessive one. Pre-sabotaged, see, so I don't even have to crush his mind."

There was a moment of quiet. _"Wait. Are you trying to_ help _him?"_

Big Boss did not reply.

 

*

He got a few missions. Fourth on a four-man squad. Box duty, mostly, and one time he sat on call as an advisor to an agent infiltrating an island airbase by sea. (Vector Oryx wasn't an experienced diver, but she could see around corners, and was near-impossible to catch unawares. You got a lot of odd types like that in FOXHOUND). He was still a rookie, but now the squad trusted his instincts and his patience, and he felt like he was becoming part of the unit's soul. Something about the smell of dirt-encrusted cardboard, or the kleptomanic thrill of OSP. People told him stuff now, and let him sense the tensions they were feeling.

Through 1995, the conversations were escalating.

_Everyone_ was eavesdropping, even Snake, shamelessly, barely pretending they weren't, their leaders barely pretending they didn't know. Leopard spent half his time following them around with a directional mic. They were constantly agitated - with the agents, perhaps, with the entire fucking world, but surely not with each other. Praise became scant. Big Boss pushed him harder each morning, and the rare times he managed to take the man down became proportionally more satisfying. His knees ached almost constantly but he needed those mornings while he could still have them. It felt like the whole creaking machine was revving up and racing full tilt towards the wall.

You could always hear them before you saw them, four boots in a furious lockstep. _"- can only ignore it for so long before they're done calling our bluff. The government -"_

"Fox, the government are not our problem. If they want to go to Outer Heaven they can use the sodding CIA -"

"So fuck _the government and look at what's_ behind_. He could force you out again any time and the only reason he's letting it go on is because you're playing so nice here."_

"Playing nice? I am not. I'm looking for him and when I find him I'll -"

"Boss, I know. But we've run out of chances to buy time. If you don't send someone, he'll know, and he'll have you skinned."

"He already knows. Unless he's completely lost his senses, he knows."

"Then why are we still here?"

The paces came to a halt. _"Fox, I did_ not _come back to FOXHOUND to use agents as fucking throwaway pawns. I want to_ stop _that crap for good. I am not sending anyone to Outer Heaven -"_

"Fine. I'll _go. I'll do exactly what you need me to do there. Get me a helicopter and I'll be ready by 2200."_

Gray Fox's footsteps receded towards his quarters. Big Boss dropped his cigar, and furiously ground it out with his shoe.

 

*

Three days later, Leopard woke him up at 0300 to tell him the news. "Snake, you've got to fucking hear this. Intrude N312 was a _fail_. What the fuck is happening?"

What the _fuck_. "No." He put his pillow over his head, angry at his roommate's bullshit. "That was Gray Fox's operation. Fox doesn't fail." Ever. In reputedly over twenty years of missions. The ones he took, if he ever failed he'd be dead by now. Was he dead?

"Well, he just did. But he's alive. Taken prisoner. Got out one last transmission and it doesn't make an ounce of fucking sense... What do we do now, Snake?"

"Go to sleep," he said petulantly. After a while, it seemed Leopard had done just that. Snake uncoiled and lay awake in the dark for the rest of the night, heart pounding.

 

*

He turned up at 0800 as usual, unshaved, unrested, hoping Big Boss would just kick him around enough times to make life feel normal again. The old man was in his trenchcoat, a folder clutched in one gloved hand. Someone had scrawled _'OPERATION INTRUDE N313'_ on the front of it. He bit his lip.

"Snake. Don't pretend you've not heard the news. It's time for your first solo mission. I want you to go rescue Gray Fox and find out what the hell his last transmission meant..." He slid a piece of paper out of the file - a typed radio transcript. Below the time and frequency stamps were only two simple words:

 

> METAL GEAR.


	2. EROS

Snake's homecoming was awkward, to say the least.

Fuck it, but until the very last moment he'd been looking forward to it. Just rescuing Gray Fox would've made him the toast of the base, and destroying Metal Gear would have him sorted - no more rookie jokes, no more box duty, maybe even a grain of respect from Big Boss.

Big Boss was gone, his little empire crushed, and if he was still alive it was no thanks to Snake.

He was not the toast of the base. Most agents wouldn't even _look_ at him. There were no congratulations, little acknowledgement that he'd succeeded in a task when even the Fox couldn't - although the more Snake thought about the situation, the more convinced he became that it had been _didn't_ rather than _couldn't_. FOXHOUND put a lot of stock in loyalty, and perhaps Fox's failure demonstrated more of that than Snake's success could. No wonder no one wanted him around.

He felt justified in his prior suspicion that Big Boss hadn't liked him very much. Sending him on a suicide mission and then trying to blow him to hell had been a fairly strong hint.

There wasn't a lot for anyone to talk to him about. Leopard was still trying out the usual banter, but somehow it never got past "So hey, you shot Big Boss..." before trailing off. He got sent on a lengthy mission a while later, leaving Snake alone in their room to stare at the walls in the evenings.

He'd noticed that no one was talking to Gray Fox either. He seemed to be spending a lot of time in his office, or otherwise out of sight. Never again would he wander the base attached to Big Boss's elbow; instead, Campbell and Miller stomped around together, talking noisily about how the hell FOXHOUND would get past this, what lies they'd have to tell the suits to survive. No cloud of cigar smoke followed them down the hallways; of eavesdroppers they had plenty, but they were all jitters, no awe.

Colonel Campbell was in charge now, and he made a thoughtful and thorough leader. Everyone thought he was a great commanding officer.

But everyone knew that he wasn't the boss.

 

*

There was a goddamn Congressional inquiry that dragged on for weeks. And weeks. After the first ten days he was ready to strangle FOXHOUND's lawyer, but knowing FOXHOUND, the suit was probably better at CQC than he was.

Gray Fox testified too, and Snake watched him from the public gallery. He was an excellent liar, Snake thought - serious and serene. Not someone you'd want to play poker with. He wondered which lies had been coached by the lawyers, and which were Fox's own additions. Congress did not ask what it had been like to be taken prisoner by a man who'd been your mentor and commander for over twenty years. Congress didn't know a fucking goddamn thing.

As Fox left the witness stand, he looked up to where Snake was standing, and nodded, lips pressed together, as if acknowledging Snake's thoughts.

At the end of the interminable proceedings, Congress concluded that Big Boss should never have been permitted to return to the USA, should never have retaken command of his own disciples, his activities in Africa should have been much more closely monitored (by who? FOXHOUND?), and that Snake was due a reproachful look for not ensuring Big Boss was dead before he left. _Well fuck you,_ he thought as he was leaving for the last time. _If the Capitol was about to explode and you'd just shot the Speaker to get out of it, would you run back to make sure he was really dead?_

Thinking back on the weeks of bickering, he decided that some of them might.

In February, FOXHOUND put him on leave. For three months.

 

*

He tried not to think too much. Unfortunately, there was jack-all else to do. He took long runs every morning and evening, trying to exhaust his thoughts of energy. He realised he was smoking more and more. He'd go to the movies some nights, slip out for a smoke halfway through, and usually not bother to go back for the rest of the film. Trying not to think. It worked, some days. Others, he just found himself staring into space, words and memories looping over and over.

There were a few bars nearby that he'd go to late at night, looking for ways to kill feelings and keep them dead. He was wary of drugs and alcohol - their effects were more like the opposite of his intentions - but there were always warm bodies to take home, if they even made it that far. Men more often than women; they needed less talk, sometimes none at all, and they never even tried to stay to breakfast. (He wasn't lonely. They weren't worth it. He wasn't fucking lonely).

So he took his runs, drank instant coffee, filled up ashtray after ashtray, ate out of the microwave, kept the apartment clean and tidy because it was something to do. He wondered about repainting the place to kill time, but ultimately he didn't care enough. He would've liked to get a dog. Not a foxhound - maybe something bigger, something that needed some real exercise. But there would've been no one to care for it while he was away.

Some days he spent staring at the phone imagining himself picking it up, calling Colonel Campbell and saying he _had_ to come back to base, take another mission, or he'd lose his mind. But he knew that would just be an invitation to spend the next year being pored over by the shrinks. He could stand it, right?

He'd held out for over a month. It would be fine. It was good that the world had put him down for a while, forgotten him again - better than the lawyers, the Congressional inquiry, all the intrusions after Intrude N313, all the awkwardness on base. The awkwardness. They could move on with him out of the way - he'd come back, and it would be just the same as ever and everything would be fine again. Except that Big Boss and Gray Fox wouldn't be striding about the halls together, boots clicking, coats swaying, smoke trailing after them as they went.

But it would be fine. The same. They just needed to forget him and he needed to forget Big Boss.

And the doorbell rang.

He shook his head. How long had he been standing there? It was getting dark. He'd not turned the lights on. The doorbell rang again and he reached for the gun he wasn't wearing. It _never_ rang. He barely recognised the sound. There was a gun on the telephone table - he grabbed it and opened the door just a crack, letting it catch on the chain.

Gray Fox was leaning on the doorjam.

"Snake," he said. His voice was as solemn as ever. David was suddenly hyperalert, noticing all the tiny details - Fox's messy hair, the gloves hanging out of his coat pocket, his worn-out eyes. He put the gun down, not sure if Fox had even seen it, and unchained the door. "They put me on leave too - I thought I'd come see how you were doing."

"How did you know where I lived?" Fox stared at him levelly until David realised he'd just asked the world's most accomplished spy how he'd known where he lived. "Uh..." He flushed with embarrassment, and Fox laughed. Not cruelly, but kindly.

Like it was okay. Like they'd known each other for years.

"Want to come inside?" he asked, though he couldn't think of any reason why he would.

"Sure, if I wouldn't be intruding."

_There's nothing_ here _for you to intrude upon, Fox. Not a goddamn thing._

 

*

"You're watching the figure skating?"

David looked around. Seemed like he was; he'd turned that channel on a couple weeks ago, when they were showing clips from the Iditarod - an event that filled him with an elemental curiosity - and never bothered changing it. He'd always liked to watch winter sports; it had been a sort of escapism when he'd been growing up in New Mexico. "Yeah - I guess it beats most of what's on TV."

"At home, it's always tuned to the Discovery Channel." David blinked - it hadn't really struck him before that other agents had to just put up with people when they were on leave. Fight over a TV remote with people. Try to get along with people. Fox had slid off his trenchcoat, lying it over the back of the little worn sofa. He was dressed very plainly underneath - just black jeans and a long-sleeved t-shirt. Maybe that was an infiltrator's instinct; to be unmarked and unremarkable. At the latter, he failed. Too scarred, too strange, and too beautiful.

Not having much else to share, David offered him cigarettes and what company he could muster, and both were accepted gracefully. He didn't know why Fox was there. Not really to see if he was okay. (He was okay.) Maybe he had something else to talk about. Another thought crossed his mind - that Fox had come to get _away_ from something - but that was no reason to seek David out, surely. His interest in the skating seemed genuine, and they were soon talking about it - the overblown drama of the last Olympics, their shared suspicion that everything had been better in the late 80s, and how hot some of the competitors were. Fox laughed about the last, and David wondered if the man was as surprised as he was to meet another guy who saw more to it than that.

"Can _you_ skate?"

"Never tried. You?"

"Not very well. Someone tried to show me how, once." Fox looked distant for a moment. "I still like to watch it. More than anything else they show."

David nodded. "Same. Hate team sports."

"Well, aren't you just a typical FOXHOUND agent."

"You would know, Fox. You've been one for, how long?"

"Since I was...a lot younger than you are now." He looked aside - David thought maybe he hadn't liked the question, but then he added: "And you can call me Frank."

David was startled. Damn FOXHOUND traditions, but field agents did _not_ have names. Names were for medics, advisers, tech staff - if Fox was telling the truth, it was a true show of trust. "Sure. Frank." He chewed his lip. Fuck traditions. "I'm David." _But I bet you already knew._ He held out a hand, which Frank shook with comic sincerity. "And I'm glad you stopped by." He realised he had no idea whether the man lived two blocks away or had dropped in via helicopter just to talk to him, and wasn't sure which was less unlikely.

"So you hate leave too?" Frank asked.

"Yes," he replied, with feeling. "Glad I'm not the only one."

Frank had one heel up on the sofa; he leant his head on his knee, an odd posture for a man of almost David's height. "Fighting's what I know. I don't remember any other life. Hard to figure out how to be alive without it..." He sighed. "Big Boss understood."

The way he said it - the matter-of-factness, the tinge of sadness - told David a lot of things he hadn't the balls to ask about. That Frank still _cared_, even now the world had turned upside down. FOXHOUND's founder still meant something to him. It was terrifying, and it was reassuring, because Big Boss meant something to David too. Commanding officers always did.

_Fuck everything._ He figured that if he'd truly done something horribly wrong, Gray Fox wouldn't be sat beside him now. _No, he'd've killed me on my doorstep, and felt no remorse._

"So what are you going to do now?" he asked. "Quit?"

"I don't know. That could be worse than leave. You going to quit?"

He'd been considering it, for roughly the last thirty seconds. "I don't know." There was too much he didn't know yet. He looked at Frank, and found Frank looking at him - his head half-turned, eyes masked under long lashes - and felt like the other man was a box that contained all the answers, a box that would be forever locked.

Something solidified in the other man's eyes. "David. There's things that neither of us know yet. But there's also things we could share." A key. If he had the nerve to take it. "Things we haven't answered truthfully until now. A question for a question."

He thought on this for a moment. "Deal."

But there was too much to ask, and it was in too many pieces, and the things he wanted to know most - _Why the hell did you do it? How long had you known? You've been on his side since always, and can that really change?_ \- he didn't dare. Too huge and too personal. There were other shards his words had the strength to lift, but not those.

"You first," he tried. Maybe Frank already had a question in mind.

The silence drew on. Maybe Frank was as confused as David, or more so. Eventually he said, "Honestly now. Is Big Boss still alive?"

Frank had heard what he'd told Congress - the lawyerly precise story about filling him with lead and then running from the collapsing fortress. Frank had also, he supposed, seen the reports in the newspapers he'd now given up reading - people looking for Big Boss and seeing him in the oddest places, like he was the new Elvis or something. And Frank wanted an answer, from the only person who'd really know.

"I don't know if he's still alive. But," and this he'd yet to breathe a word of to anyone, "he was when I left. Heard him call out as I ran away."

He almost heard Frank's calm fracture. The man's breath hitched, and his lips drew back from his teeth. David wondered if it had been the answer he'd hoped for. He hadn't told anyone before because he'd wanted the whole thing over, and he still did, but maybe Fox - Frank - couldn't feel the same, not after fighting for Big Boss for over twenty years.

Frank was sitting upright now, back pressed to the corner of the sofa. "Thank you. Your turn."

David's mind raced. That had to have been what Frank had come to him for. Maybe. He _couldn't_ ask Frank whose side he was on, or if he'd ever really been a prisoner in Outer Heaven. Those weren't things you asked someone who trusted you with their name. And aside from that, there was only one other thing he wanted to know.

"Did he really want me dead?"

Frank tipped his head to look at the ceiling. "Fuck. I don't know. And I'd been trying to work it out." _What? Why?_ "You told Congress he'd wanted you to bring back false information, but you'd stumbled over the truth instead..."

"Yeah, he said that."

"David..." He realised Frank had closed his eyes. "One thing I do know about Big Boss is that he never tried to undo the past. Not even when something had broken his heart. I don't think he wanted you dead. I know he wanted to _control_ you - I think you were the agent he was most prepared to lie to. To use. But, before all this..." He was blinking, brow furrowed in thought. "He could've ruined you. He could've turned his back on you. He never did." He gave a dark laugh. "Sucker for the underdog, maybe."

"Right..." David didn't understand. It was like he was listening to half of one of those old conversations, and that made even less sense than hearing Fox and Big Boss speaking together. "So much for sharing what we know."

"What?"

He looked Frank in the eye. "We've got our hunches, for sure, but Frank, all we just said is that we _don't_ know."

"True enough." Frank nodded. _What are you going to do, try to find him?_ Half the world was looking for Big Boss - if he was even still out there. But David knew that if anyone could run him to earth it would be Gray Fox. _And what then?_ "But thanks, anyway."

"Same to you." He swallowed hard. "Settles my mind a bit." Frank looked at him; not a question, but an open door. He stumbled through it. "Can't stop thinking, Fox. About what happened. About charging in to rescue you and..." He turned away, blinking back unexpected tears. He wanted another cigarette. "Everything before that, too. Like the last two years playing in a fucking loop in my fucking head. Everything he taught me. All the tools he gave me that I used to bring him down."

"CQC?" Frank lifted a foot onto his knee, moving a little closer to him. His grey eyes had turned warm.

"No - the things he said CQC was about. Using all my senses..."

"Loyalty." Big Boss said no one had asked. But Frank had been told. Or hadn't _needed_ to be told. "Being alive."

"Feeling the will of your enemy." Frank was looking at him sidelong, and David could feel a familiar gravity. Could just be the feeling of trusting someone, or the adrenaline charge of secrets. But he leaned a little closer himself, and the blond smiled, flashing a row of pointed teeth. "Knowing their mind - but better -"

"Believing that you'll succeed." Frank offered him his hand again.

He took it gently, feeling a tense sweat beading on the other man's palm. "Believing in yourself -"

"Making the first move."

David's wrists were pinned before Frank had finished speaking, but the kiss was so hard he didn't care. So hard he knew nothing except tongues mashing against teeth, except the torrent of blood and emotion called up by their tangling lips - nothing but him and Gray Fox. Soon he was all heat and no oxygen, and he prised a hand from Frank's grip, pushing him back at the elbow and trying to force the man's knee off his other wrist.

He did not succeed, but he had air - air and Frank's scarred forehead resting against his, Frank's warm breath on his face. He reached his free hand up to the man's neck. Touched the ends of his hair, and was surprised how soft it was. He felt a murmur in the other man's throat, and kissed him again, swallowing the sound before he ever heard it. His caress at Frank's neck slowly hardened to a chokehold, and Frank finally shifted his knee. Perhaps David felt a laugh under his fingers. He pulled away again, taking Frank by the shoulders, working his hands over the hard muscles there. A rosy flush was spreading over that pale face.

"Goddamnit -" he whispered. This wasn't what he'd been doing. This wasn't the sex he'd had with strangers in the hope of a moment's respite from himself. He didn't know what the hell it was except that it was terrifying and he wanted it anyway.

Frank dropped a hand to David's hips, and with a few firm touches he was drawn over to straddle Frank's lap. He spread his hands out over the other man's chest, touching hungrily, finding hardened nubs, pressing. Teeth traced his collarbone, making his hips buck against Frank's, and he heard himself panting more cursewords.

Frank's cock was swelling beneath his own, and the friction was enough to make him dizzy.

He yanked off Frank's shirt, a favour that was returned immediately, and took a second to admire his flesh - that odd pallor with its soft yellow undertone, the ridged scars and bullet wounds, the sweet roughness of twenty years of war. A second was all he had before Frank crushed their bodies together - lifting his ass with one fondling hand, mouth curling around a nipple.

He grunted, head bent to Frank's neck, stroking him up to the ear with breath and lips. "This what you came for?"

"No." His voice was a thread of breeze, a whisper. "But it's why I'm still here." He felt Frank fumbling with zips. A rough hand closed around his cock, and he groaned, reached downwards, heard a harsh breath against his neck, touched heads together and also heads together, kissing again, feeling fluid beading, the early tremours of an eruption. But then he slid off his perch on Frank's lap, making space for them both to get properly undressed, because goddamnit he wanted to see this man naked again.

Frank didn't disappoint. God_damn_. Lean, plaster-pale, shaped perfectly - hips narrower than his, shoulders wider, penis curving out from rocky thighs - it looked so dark against the rest of his flesh, like a stain. Uncut, too. He liked that. Liked enough to taste it, one knee dropped to the carpet, his tongue lapping up the dewdrops of their earlier contact, Frank's fingers tightening over his scalp.

He looked up for a moment, and saw the other man's brow folding along scarlines, his spine curling forward, his body tremouring. It was strangely like aiming a shot - letting himself still, and finding the rhythm of his heartbeat. Passing that rhythm to Frank with firm strokes of his lips.

After a few minutes, Frank tugged at his hair. He laid his head on a hard thigh, finding it startlingly cold compared to the warm cock that now bobbed in front of his gaze. "Should we go somewhere more comfortable?" Frank suggested, fingers stroking at David's neck. He shifted, nodded towards the bedroom door, and rummaged in the pocket of his discarded jeans.

Frank looked back to him from the doorway as he flicked on the lightswitch. "Can't say I thought to bring condoms," he murmured, looking almost sheepish - a fox in sheep's clothing, barely hiding his teeth. David waved the ones he'd found in his wallet, rolled to his feet and pushed Frank into his room with one hand to the ass.

"Got a preference?" he asked, opening the nightstand drawer.

Frank sat on the end of his bed, looking thoughtful. "For now? Top me," he said. David nodded, not sure if he should be surprised, _really_ not sure if he should be surprised that he was engaging in the preparatory politenesses of fucking men with Gray Fox, Special Forces legend. But his mind was rising to somewhere sex never normally took it anywhere near, somewhere close to mission mode, where you moved first and figured things out later.

Easier to shoot your own commanding officer that way. Easier and more satisfying, all round.

Frank pulled him down to the mattress for another kiss, with a fist curled in his hair to hold him suffocatingly close. David's empty hand found the other man's hips, tracing over planes of muscle - he found a delightful rough hollow high on the left-hand side, and realised it had been dug by the hilt of Fox's machete, hanging from his belt for twenty years. He twisted down from the man's grip, parting his legs with a hand, opening his pot of KY with the other.

Couldn't resist another taste. Not that he was trying too hard to resist anything. He slid slick fingers inside Frank's body, and felt him buck under his tongue.

David sat back to slip a condom on, then took a moment to let his hands fondle Frank from the tip of his cock to his entrance, thumbs buried in curls of hair even paler than Frank's skin. He was still marvelling at the other man's body - it didn't look old, just shaped by war into a machine-like rigour, steel held together with veins and tendons. There were scars everywhere, each one a story that David knew far better than to ask about. Frank was raising an eyebrow at him, full of feral hunger. "We should've done this at Outer Heaven," he said, carefully dripping lube over latex.

The blond just laughed and put an arm about his shoulders. "No, you had to get through there first. I don't fuck rookies."

David wondered, as he eased into him, if he'd just said that because he knew it would make him feel warm somewhere inside. So not like anyone else he'd screwed, ever. Like sex was an act of _belonging_, with Frank. And so fucking _tight_, like everything else about his goddamn beautiful body and his goddamn unfathomable mind.

He started moving, slowly at first, but Frank was growling in his throat and shifting his knees against David's sides. Demanding more from him. There was something limitless in those grey eyes - something that yearned to take everything he could give. He took it faster and deeper, until every part of his cock burned with heat.

Frank was arching under him, pushing up into David's stomach. He caught his balance, wrapped Frank's sex in one hand, and kept moving. Felt ankles lock behind his back, and teeth snap at his shoulder - he'd never seemed this _close_ to someone while fucking. So contained on all sides. So locked into someone else's flesh.

The truth hit him somewhere just north of that mission state, just south of his orgasm, and harder than either. _Frank, I care about you._

 

*

"Going somewhere?" he asked, as Frank slid out of the tangle of sheets, moving with surprising ease for someone who'd just been screwed senseless.

"Yeah, I need to get home -" A twisted look crossed Frank's face, but then the usual calm settled. "David, I'd stay here if I could. Truly. But I said I'd be home tonight."

Even amid his disappointment, David believed him. _It's not about sex. It's not even about me. It's 'home', wherever that is. It makes him act guilty._ He recognised the feeling behind Frank's eyes; it'd been writhing inside him since Outer Heaven. _I gunned down my CO - but what the hell did_ you _do?_

"It's okay," he replied flatly. Frank's gaze still lingered. "Wasn't assuming you'd stay for breakfast." _But I wanted you to._ He pried himself out of bed, looking for tissues. Needed to clean up, change the sheets. He heard Frank collecting clothing, turning on the shower.

Maybe it was easier to live alone, when you killed people for a living. Maybe those who didn't had people worrying all the time, always watching them while they were on leave, always wondering if war had driven you mad.

He was still naked when Frank returned and laid a cold hand on his shoulder. He placed his own atop it without looking around. "Want to drop by again sometime?" he asked. He wasn't hopeful. Never was. Best way.

But he felt Frank nod. "Let me jot down my number -" David watched him go. Saw him scrawl on the telephone pad. Their eyes locked for a second before Frank saw himself out, and David strained his ears for a minute after - no rotor blades, for sure. Motorbike, sounded like. Typical merc.

He went to read what was written on the pad.

> _FRANK JAEGER - 555-014-048_

  
Huh. Same state, at least...

And he'd given David his entire goddamn name.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> One thing I really had fun with as I was writing this was allowing both Gustava and Naomi to affect the emotional dynamics of this story without mentioning them by name. Gustava, the MG2 character Fox once wanted to marry, was a figure skater, and that Snake is into figure skating enough to recognise her on sight is kinda endearing, don't you think?


	3. KLOTHO

The next day seemed better than usual. Longer, or maybe he noticed more of it as it passed. David ran for miles in the morning, enjoying the sunshine on his face. He kept noticing things he'd ignored for the last month and a half; the daisies by the sidewalk, the smell of the soil underfoot, the crinkled smile from his downstairs neighbour when they passed each other in the hall. It was like he'd found a new sense with which to perceive the world. He regarded it with a hopeful, wary scepticism.

In the evening he called the number on his phonepad, and was answered by a woman's voice, soft and a little nasal. "Hello?"

"Um," he said, not entirely sure of himself. "Is Frank there?"

"I'll just get him. Frankie, it's for you!" He heard the handset on the other end thud down. _Frankie?_ Who in hell was that? A girlfriend, or wife? He was pretty sure Frank didn't have anyone like that in his life - few agents did. Who else could he be sharing a phone line with? Surely not a mother? David didn't have a mother, and tended to assume no one else had one either.

Didn't matter. Whoever it was, Frank hadn't spoken of her, which meant it either wasn't important or wasn't something Frank wanted him to know.

"David. Glad you called. We need to talk. Not now, not tomorrow. Monday?"

"Frank -" He didn't sound annoyed, exactly. Just _very_ different to every other time David had ever heard his voice. Jumpy? Too light, like he was trying to fake cheerful but didn't know how. Cracks opening up between the words. Whatever. "Monday, sure."

"Meet me at...do you know the old Methodist church on Derwent Road? Be there at 1800. I'll show you the way from there." There was a pause, and David thought Frank was hanging up. "And, thank you. I mean it."

He hung up. So. He tried to collect his feelings, and wondered about setting out to kill them. But if they were about Gray Fox, they might yet have some worth. _I'll let them live._

 

*

Frank had reached the church before he did, and was leaning lazily forward on his bike - a black Kawasaki Ninja. Should've guessed. He waved a black-gloved hand and set off, David following him through traffic. It wasn't too much further; decidedly the good part of town, where apartments blocks had under-street garages and balconies out the back and who knew what else inside. Hardly two blocks, but...too close for coincidence, and he wasn't sure how or even _what_ to ask about that.

"I'm sorry I couldn't see you yesterday," Frank said as he opened the door. The room inside was rather plain, and dotted with sealed cardboard boxes. Few human touches, and not even much furniture. A recent move. "Had to give someone a ride to the airport in the evening."

"What, on that thing?" He waved towards the street.

Frank nodded. "On that thing. With backpacks full of luggage. It was quite a ride. Want some coffee?" He nodded, and Frank led him to the kitchen, stepping around boxes as they went. David regarded them thoughtfully. Outer Heaven had played a strange trick on his memory - ripped his life around it, made him think of each moment over and over it until nothing he ever saw or even _thought_ about meant anything else. Even cardboard boxes. Goddamn.

The kitchen looked a little more lived-in; the tiles were too clean, but there was a little clutter and a faint smell of burnt toast. Frank was reaching for a jar of coffee; its shelf was also home to four different varieties of tea, which seemed odd until he remembered that Frank wasn't the only person who lived here. Oh...

The choice hurt a little, but he'd already made it; Frank clearly didn't want him to know, so he wasn't going to ask. Whoever else there was in his life, they weren't here now, and David was.

Frank grabbed two mugs out of a cupboard. "Colonel Campbell called me on Saturday," he said. "He wants me to go back to base."

"Back to base? Why?"

Frank looked at him over his shoulder. "Vector Oryx quit. Says she's still loyal to FOXHOUND, but she can't take orders from anyone except Big Boss."

He could almost see the doubts written in the creases between Frank's eyes. "_Damn_. And he thinks having you back at base will...?"

"Everyone trusts me," he said flatly, as if he were stating what kind of gun he carried, or how many people he'd killed last year. "Oryx was from Cambodia," he added, pouring water into the press. "Too many of her friends and relatives there talked about her knack for seeing through things, and she was abducted by Chinese spies. We found her and rescued her while we were out there doing...something else entirely." We, he knew, meant Gray Fox and Big Boss. Always together. "She trusted him completely. No loyalty could outweigh that trust."

Trust, in a traitor who'd betrayed the entire unit, the entire _country_. He didn't say it. Didn't fucking have to. Instead, he said "So what are you going to do?"

"I told Campbell I'd think about it. I waited to see if you'd call me, and as soon as you did...I called him back and told him 'no'." He reached over and took David's hand. "You've got another month, right? I don't want to go back to base yet, and I don't want to leave you alone."

Trust. Loyalty.

 

*

He was still fumbling with it, like it was an unfamiliar weapon he'd found on-site and had no choice but to use because it was the only one he had: he cared about Frank. Maybe because he was inside the whole clusterfuck in David's head - part of Outer Heaven, part of Big Boss. Didn't matter why. He just did. He watched Frank making coffee, his hand movements as crisp as if he were dismantling a gun. How did you tell someone that their body hadn't been just a means to an end?

Could start by opening a few doors of his own. "Why aren't you going back?"

"For the sake of all the things we don't know yet." Frank was staring into his cup. "And now I'm alone here, I can take some time to think about them."

"Alone?"

Frank gave him a thin-lipped smile. "Alone is when you don't have to act like nothing troubles you, or pretend to be something you're not."

David nodded. He sipped his coffee, but all he could really taste was Frank's words. "So you think you can live another month without fighting?"

"I can get by, if I've got something to keep me going..." Their eyes met, and Frank took a step closer to him. There was weariness in the slant of his shoulders. He seemed burdened. If Frank was man enough to let him see that, then David would damn well help him shoulder it, in any way he could.

David set his mug down on the counter, and wrapped an arm around Frank's waist. He traced his hand up and down the man's back and watched his eyes until the icy exhaustion inside them started to melt away. "I, I can think later," murmured Frank, and leaned his head against David's shoulder.

He felt his mind gearing up towards the mission state again.

He'd no experience in caring about people, or helping them find peace of mind. Nothing to go on except guesswork and observation. He touched his cheek against Frank's, and felt strong arms wrap around him. _Why_ had Frank sought him out and shown him confidence after confidence? To be close to someone. To be close to _him_. He caught Frank's mouth with his own, and kissed more gently than he'd ever kissed anyone, slowly teasing his tongue over warm, dry lips, watching until those grey eyes closed, contented. Fuck it, the guy could have sex with anyone he wanted, but what he'd reached for was David. So tonight, he was going to take his goddamn time.

 

*

He was running across earth that broke into fissures beneath his feet, shifting, unbalancing, pulling down until he could not run, could barely walk, was trapped and frozen. _"David."_

There was a cell, a cube of sun-baked iron, a barred door, and a pale man who looked to him with eyes that ran red with blood. _"David. David!"_

Big Boss was throwing him to the ground again and again, and he was sinking into the dirt, crushed by it, dying. _"David..."_

He was shot and bleeding and he was firing his gun at Big Boss - _"David. Snake!"_

It was quiet, and he was just stuck in the one place the memories could _always_ find him - sleep. He inched away from it, as if he were crawling on his hands and knees, as if he hadn't the strength to do anything else. He felt a hand squeeze his shoulder, coaxing him onward to wakefulness. Lending him strength where he had none. _Frank -_

Frank. Fuck.

He woke to that rough touch on his skin and a firm voice saying, "Snake, easy now, it's over, soldier, so easy, you're with friends, Snake..." When he sat up, he shoved Frank away on instinct, and almost didn't regret it a moment later. _No._

He'd been much safer with strangers. No risk that his mind would flake out in someone else's bed.

Frank was crouching on the edge of the mattress, watching him. "David, it's alright. If they fired every agent who got nightmares, there'd be none of us left." He looked away, and David got it. None of _us_? Fine. But...

The blond got to his feet. "Come on. Let's get outside, have a smoke, whatever." David followed him through the flat to the balcony, picking up the neccessaries as he went. They were both naked, but if Frank didn't mind that, neither did he.

He'd noticed the balcony in passing earlier, but hadn't seen much other than that there were a few flowerpots. There were a _lot_ of flowerpots. There were also pipes, duct-taped in place and leading back to a water-butt, which was - he looked up - underneath a square hole cut through an above gutter, with a makeshift drain-pipe affixed to siphon rainfall to the pipe network. This did not, he realised, look like Frank's sort of project.

He looked to Frank, incredulous, and received a grin in return. "When she first set this up, that was pretty much my reaction too. I've got used to it." There were a couple of folding chairs in the centre of the chaos, and Frank took the one on the left, still looking faintly amused. "May I have one of those?"

David lit a cigarette and passed it to him, his lungs lapping up the day's first breath of tar. If you could call it day, with the stars slowly fading in a soft blue sky, and dawn lurking right beneath the horizon. It was bright enough to see, and dim enough that Frank was almost glowing in the half-light, a ghost with a foot hooked over one knee, tipping fagash into a pot of pansies. (At least, they looked like pansies, but each flower was huge, with seven large petals. That didn't seem right).

"Did I wake you?" he asked.

"No," Frank replied. "I never sleep for long." He chewed his lip. "That why you hate leave? Too much on your mind?"

"Yeah. I need another mission."

"Why?"

"To give me something to think about other than my last mission." He inhaled, thinking about how stupid that was, and how true.

"Our sins just keep on replicating themselves..." Frank's lips pressed together. "There's no redemption on the battlefields, but they keep us alive."

"Frank..." he said slowly, "I never felt like this after the Gulf War. N313 was different. Because I was alone, except for you. And because I shot Big Boss. I never wanted to - I was just trying to stay alive..."

Frank sighed and closed his eyes. In the dim light, his face was nothing but scars and shadows, as if his thoughts and memories were etched upon on his flesh. "David," he said. "You did the job he sent you to do. Not the job he intended you to do, but you did the job. His intent was his mistake - tried to use you when he should have known better. I've watched him kill people, destroy people, destroy whole nations, but he never used anyone before. One slip is all it takes." He took another drag on his cigarette, looking towards the rising sun. "I'm no leader. But I've always followed what I believe in, followed someone I trust - someone who trusted _me_ enough to always tell me the truth. If he'd trusted you too, maybe this wouldn't have fucking happened."

He didn't reply. But he felt better, kinda. _Who's rescuing who from Outer Heaven now?_

Trust was the questions he wasn't asking - the ones Frank had answered _because_ he hadn't asked.


	4. KORE

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There's a theory, started by Saphrawn over on LJ, that Python and George Kasler are the same person. I love this theory and went with it in this fic.

They were walking in step. Worse, Snake was wearing his FOXHOUND coat for pretty much the first time ever- certainly the _last_ time; it didn't fit right, and all his instincts objected to wearing clothing that flapped and swished.

He tried to _not_ walk in step with Fox, but it was near to impossible. They were too similar in height and build, and he suspected Frank was keeping the pace out of habit. Or on purpose. It was hard to tell. Their feet tapped out a rhythm on the hardwood floor, two by two, and he thought about the first time he'd ever spoken to Gray Fox - approaching that cell on silent feet, snapping the neck of the jailer. They'd talked in whispers, Snake's heart racing with the fear of discovery, Fox quiet and unflappable and so fucking professional he should've wondered there and then if the man had _really_ been held captive in enemy territory for nearly a week.

He still hadn't asked. And wasn't going to. He'd been thinking too much about loyalty.

They were not silent. They were back, blatant, daring the unit to keep shunning them, and he knew from the look on Frank's face that he was wondering how many people were listening.

"- never had to fight the CIA for personnel when we were under Big Boss's command, but now FOXHOUND takes its orders from the government -"

"Thought we always took orders from the government -"

"Oh, fuck the government. They're too busy with their budget crisis to care about one small unit -"

"We just saved the world -"

"- from ourself." A twisted nothing-smile crossed Frank's face. "With our own methods."

"Proof our methods work."

"When used by loyal and well-trained hands."

"Fox, I don't have anyone to practice CQC with any more."

"But Snake, neither do I."

 

*

"Your hair needs trimming," he noted, bouncing on the balls of his feet, flexing fingers back and forth.

"So does yours," replied Fox. He put a hand to his head, flicking through uncombed tangles; wasn't much point in smartening up in a morning if the first thing you were going to do was get beat up. Fox's hair really was getting unruly; still die-straight and winter-crisp, but it fell unevenly down his neck, and overshadowed his eyes at the front. "Wait a moment..."

Snake watched him rummage in a locker built into the back of the room. He didn't know who had originally designed the sneaking suit, or who had refined it over the years, but he figured the lot of them were complete perverts; he could just've well been staring at Frank naked. Distracting. But it got the blood flowing.

Fox turned, holding two lengths of cloth - one red, one dark blue. He balled one up and flung it at Snake, grinning.

"What?" He hadn't caught it; it had landed on his shoulder, unravelling over his suit. Fox was folding the other between his fingers. "Ohh." He mimicked his friend's actions, tying a firm knot in the cloth at the back of his head. "Why were these even in there, anyway?"

"Big Boss used to like them. Suits you," Fox smirked. Snake could've said the same; the red bandanna was a bright gash around his skull, pushing hair back where it belonged and somehow making it seem paler, his eyes brighter. "Shall we begin?"

Snake was on him before he'd finished the sentence, but Fox was ready for that.

 

*

It was different from training with Big Boss, and not just because their cooldown routine was more fun. Frank wasn't trying to instil him with a set of combat values, or make him into something he was not; Frank was just holding doors open, inviting David inside his fighting skills and showing him everything he wanted to know. It wasn't memorising techniques, with Gray Fox, it was simply touching his soul laid bare; perhaps there was no difference between the two.

And Fox was (as he had previously had cause to notice) both highly flexible and prone to inventing moves on the spot. Snake had to learn to defend himself from the impossible, and to attack equally creatively just to keep up with him. Fox was wild; Snake fought dirty, and was commended for it. He learned more bladework; if Big Boss had known how to wield a knife, then Gray Fox was born with one in his hand. Snake could see now why he always wore a blade. Fox never seemed more himself than when he unsheathed it. Some days, the knifefights were more compelling than the sex they had afterwards.

He learned to fence with a machete, and even with the ninja-tos that used to hang on the wall of Big Boss's office. He said it was fucking ridiculous but Fox insisted, claiming that there could come a moment when such skills would be invaluable, and Fox was hard to refuse when he cared about something so much.

Snake was starting to find joy in FOXHOUND's eccentric specialisations - the skills you trained to mastery, and the ones you learned from others just because you could, with CQC the foundation that supported everything else they did. He was an infiltrator, a survivalist and had a range of other physical skills. Gray Fox did mission command, many different mech and piloting tasks, and wetwork. Especially wetwork. That would perhaps change as he approached the age of forty, but for now, there was no one alive who Snake would less like to meet in a real battle.

_But it's like Big Boss,_ he thought. _FOXHOUND show each other these things, and now we know how to take each other down._

There were agents quitting every week - they joined the CIA, or stopped fighting entirely. The more he belonged to FOXHOUND, the less of it there was to belong to. But with Frank pinned under his hands and panting for breath, he didn't care.

 

*

The briefing room was packed before they got there. They were late. They'd been _distracted_. There were a score of other people there ahead of them, all advisers or field agents, most of them already sat at the four huge mahogany tables; Fox went to the head of the room to sit beside George Kasler - the crag-faced former agent who some of the other operatives called Python. Snake had never worked with him, but he'd heard the man was spending his twilight years gathering information on all the greatest mercenaries in the world, tabulating how best to kill each and every one of them. (Every FOXHOUND member was said to be on that list.) Snake took a seat between Stalker Leopard and a spook called Decoy Octopus - FOXHOUND's oldest active infiltrator, a vague-faced man with an incredible knack for disguise. He was as odd as Vector Oryx, in a way. Snake still missed Oryx, because he'd helped her and now she was no longer there; what was the point of experience if it just crumbled away like that, instead of staying part of your world?

"Hey," grated Leopard. "Haven't seen you since...what...Christmas?"

"Nice to see you too," he replied. He was watching Frank and Kasler talk, vaguely wishing he could read lips.

"So, you shot Big Boss...and now you - you and Fox..." The spy trailed off. Snake nodded, disinterested. He wasn't sure if Leopard was disgusted, jealous or just terrified. "Whatever happened to 'don't ask, don't tell'?"

"You forgot the not asking part."

"Fuck you, Snake, I'm a _spy_ -"

Colonel Campbell called the crowd to order with a cough. "FOXHOUND, I think you know why I've called all of you here. We've had to turn in a new direction this year, and not everyone's been able to stay with FOXHOUND through that. Maybe some of you are having second thoughts about what we are. But in truth, we simply are what we have always been, ever since 1971.

"When FOXHOUND began, there were three of us. There was Big Boss, myself, and a Russian soldier called Jonathan." He frowned, as did Kasler beside him. "Soon, we were dozens. We had specialists - makers, watchers and thinkers - all supporting sixteen field agents. We were loyal. Not to Big Boss, but to the work we had to do."

David didn't need to count heads and subtract the advisers to know that that's what FOXHOUND was left with. Sixteen field agents.

"We are not many, but remember, we never _have_ been and it's never troubled us before. And especially in the present circumstances," - meaning that Snake had shot Big Boss - "I don't think it's bad that we're looking at a leaner, but loyaller, FOXHOUND corps. We're taking new orders now, without Big Boss coming between us and the administration, and I think you'll all be out in the field with work to do very soon. There's never been more for FOXHOUND to accomplish, and there's never been a better group of agents to get it done."

Kasler lead some polite applause, and Snake noticed that everyone joined in except for Gray Fox. Dangerous, to be different, but maybe he'd never had a choice about that. He knew in his heart that whatever Campbell's FOXHOUND was loyal to, Fox could never be loyal to the same thing. But there was the mission. They all did what they had to, in the end.

_So fuck loyalty_, he thought. _I don't have it. I don't need it. I haven't believed in it since the day I shot you. I'm not a patriot. I'll keep fighting for my country because it's my job, that's all._

 

*

"So what did you make of that little farce?"

"You," Snake murmured, elbows pushed back into the pillows, "choose the strangest moments to ask questions." Fox already had his mouth back round Snake's cock, teasing the back of the head with teeth and tongue. Felt fantastic, even if Fox's attention seemed to be elsewhere. It often was lately. But you could say that for everyone on the goddamn base.

Fox shrugged, as best he could while lying stretched out on his stomach. One of his legs trailed off the end of the bed; the other was curled under him, elevating his ass into a tempting posture. Snake gasped as Fox worked his mouth further over his cock, pulling him down into that wet, constricting heat until he felt suffocated by pleasure. He'd learned a lot of things from Fox - how to fly a helicopter, hotwire a motorcycle, solicit a fuck in German or Vietnamese - but of all his mentor's talents, the knack of suppressing one's gag reflex was definitely the most pleasant to see demonstrated.

Snake received a few more dizzyingly hard throat-sucks before Fox let him go. "Have to pick my moments. You always jump me as soon as we get in here."

He reached a hand down to Fox's head, and traced the mass of scar tissue beside his right ear. "That's funny, I'd swear it was the other way around." Fox smiled a little, but his heart wasn't in it. He wanted Snake's answer. "I thought... I thought it was a bad idea for the Colonel to pin everything on _loyalty_ when we might all be loyal to different fucking things." He wove his fingers through Fox's hair. "Especially you."

Fox raised an eyebrow. "Why else would anyone stay? We've no one to follow any more."

"There's still the mission." Snake's hand moved down to trace the line of Fox's neck and shoulders. He liked this vantage point, even though his neck ached from resting against the top of the headboard; his eyes ran down Fox's spine, delving into vertebral hollows and following them up to his raised hips. Wasn't just about sex, either...but if there was a word for this, where you sat up in bed and looked down upon your friend and mentor and touched him with hands that fought him every morning, touched him in places where you could kill him with one flick of the wrist, and you felt nothing but tenderness towards him, then Snake didn't know what that word was.

Fox was dissatisfied. "Not even the mission. It's just control now, and within their control, no one is loyal to anything."

"You're going to quit -"

Fox shook his head. "There's nowhere else for me to be. Not yet." He shifted up onto his knees, revealing a hardening cock and a mass of red and black bruises on his stomach; Snake's doing, both, and he was proud of that. "I'm done thinking, but it's not yet time to act."

He stroked at a scratch on Snake's ribs, and Snake's heart twisted under his fingers. "That's why you're still here?"

"No. David," he said softly, running rough thumbs over his collarbone. He shuddered, not at the touch but the name. There were no names here. "You know why I'm still here." They kissed, and he was still trembling, because he didn't know how his resolve of earlier - to be a soldier, just a professional soldier who didn't give a shit about personal ties - could withstand the way his friend whispered his name. He kept shaking until he was held quite still, weighed down under Frank's elbows and by the look in his bloodshot eyes.

He had no words sufficient to answer that expression. So he lifted his hips, felt his blood racing as their cocks touched together - like grappling knife against knife in the training room, but with no victor, no vanquished. His hands ran over Frank's ass, kneading hard muscles, making it absolutely damn clear what he wanted.

A nod, and a deep kiss, and Fox sat back on his knees. Snake pulled himself upright, bent to suck the man's cock to full attention, and was rewarded with a firm touch to the back of his neck. He felt long arms stretch over his back, a touch brush against his entrance, and he uncurled, a knee between both of Fox's, and set hands to his shoulders. Looked at him. Marked, impassioned, tired - always so fucking tired - and kneeling before him with legs spread and teeth bared. There would be no more teasing, or talking, or saying of names. Fox shoved Snake back into the pillows and took his cock in his hand.

Snake closed his eyes, and hissed at the cold sensation of Fox pouring lube over his cock. Not much, but he felt it trail down toward his perineum, a chill trail that was followed by ghosting fingers. He heard the rip of fingernails opening plastic, felt himself covered from tip to base, and then the hands resumed their journey, pulling his thighs apart. Fox always did this the same way - slid two index fingers inside Snake's body, one to spread lube around, the other searching, curling - and there, _fuck_, right there, that was it, that was good, that was home.

And Fox always entered in one hard stroke, because he knew that Snake could take it.

He took it, _loved_ it, let it knock the breath from his body, barely to regain it before Fox started to move. He didn't think any more, just concentrated on the feel of the burn and the pleasure, thrashed his hips up to meet every movement of the man buried within him. Then his cock was wrapped in a tight hand, and he almost lost the fight for air.

His body was recalling those oral torments, and he knew that it wouldn't, as it sometimes did, last for hours. But goddamn, he was taking every moment that he could, matching Fox's thrusted rhythm for as long as he had strength. His hands clasped Fox about the head, pulling him close - he loved to play with Fox's neck, to mark it with teeth and nails, because it was something only the two of them ever saw.

When he was too spent and too close to the edge to move, he felt Fox curl over him, leaning his full bulk on Snake's chest and pushing, tugging, dragging the both of them under.

A minute later, Snake rolled him over into sweat-damped sheets, still not thinking, just sensing from the feel of the afterglow that _goddamnit, Frank, you are deeper inside me than you know._

 

*

They had both been exaggerating earlier; Frank - Fox - had turned the lights and music on, and _then_ jumped him. Or been jumped by him. Snake wasn't quite sure. The disc was still playing, Rachmaninov or someone - Fox had a taste for dead Eastern Bloc composers who Snake only knew about from watching the skating on TV. He had pointedly not explained this interest, but Snake was getting used to the silent trust between them, and had developed a hunch that he had picked the habit up from some bedmate of many years ago. He was content to let it keep playing, because he knew it helped his friend rest.

He'd always assumed that Gray Fox had his own room simply as a reflection of his importance; a field agent above field agents, someone who'd earned his seniority in blood and who everyone in FOXHOUND would gladly answer to. But the truth was that Fox was simply the worst roommate material he'd met in all his eight years in the military. Frank was restless, wont to sudden awakenings and pacing around in the small hours, and he expressed a dislike for sleeping more than a few hours at a time. He got worse nightmares than David, and though it was soothing to know it wasn't just him - and to have someone half-awake beside you to help you through it - he'd yet to figure out what to do with himself when Frank started screaming in his sleep. Holding his hands and saying his name was never enough, and what more could he do?

That was what Frank was like at the best of times; lately, his eyes were pinked from sleeplessness and stress, and he did not speak of his dreams any more. His hair seemed a little whiter every morning.

So if he seemed to be asleep, Snake would be very careful of that. He raised himself from the bed an inch at a time, then folded the covers over his friend with gentle hands. Fox would feel better for some rest, nightmares or no. He put his hand to the pillow beside the other man, wishing to touch him but not willing to risk even that small disturbance.

It probably _was_ a sign of Fox's importance that his room was on the base's top floor; the only one with windows or external doors. Snake walked through to the adjoining room, Fox's office, and opened a window by the desk, taking a moment to enjoy the smell of fresh air before lighting a cigarette. It wasn't an imposing space like Big Boss's old quarters, and the view wasn't great either, but he knew a lot of world-changing plans had been hatched here. Fox's military decorations hung on the wall, not to impress, but because they were his history.

He sat on the desk to smoke; it was mostly clear space, not because Fox was a particularly tidy person but because he had a penchant for destroying correspondence once he was done with it. Other operatives had learned to never give him the sole copy of _anything_. Currently, the only thing in his in-tray was a handwritten letter.

 

> _Dearest,_
> 
> _The project's been going well - I won't bore you with the details, but suffice it to say that the devices are as effective and almost as safe to use as I had hoped. My supervisor wants me to submit it for wider publication, but I think that unwise. I trust my results, but I don't trust the world. I am sure I do not need to tell you that I feel far less secure now than I have at any time since I was a child._
> 
> _I still don't know what to do after the PhD's over. I need to find a place where I can research outside their influence. Maybe that's not possible any more, but if anyone in the world knows where I could go, surely it would be you. Since he's gone it feels like everything I do here could be playing into their hands. But where would it be otherwise? What can I do to free myself, instead of strengthening the chains?_
> 
> _I hope you can find time to aid &amp; advise me soon, though I hardly begrudge you your distractions - would that you would tell me of them! I know there are many things you prefer to keep to yourself, but my dear, if you were anyone else - I would wonder if you had fallen in love with someone!_
> 
> _Hope to see you again soon,_
> 
> _ N. _


	5. NYX

Snake had a mission; he was first on a squad of four. It wasn't _his_ squad, the team he'd had before Outer Heaven ripped his life in two - of those, two had quit and the other had died in action back in April. But it was a team, and they were FOXHOUND, and they had a job to do. They were sent to a country Snake had barely heard of and instructed to kill the leader of the nation's parliamentary opposition.

He took orders and advice from Campbell and relayed them to the others; surveillance details of their target's location and daily routine, suggestions from Miller about how to get the kill while staying out of sight. They split into two pairs, spotting and sniping from two points on a hillside as far from their target's home as range would allow. It was easy to not think, while lying watching through his scope. But for every fifteen minutes of perfect nothing there was fifteen minutes of letting his partner take the eyestrain instead. He'd check in with the Colonel, and with his other sniping pair, trying to strain his awareness to everywhere it needed to be, trying to remember that Campbell was in charge now and he had a squad to look after and Outer Heaven was just a mound of rubble far, far away.

At Outer Heaven, he'd been alone on the battlefield with Big Boss's harsh voice in his ear.

It had been so _simple_, out there on his own. And he'd been such an innocent - never been doublecrossed, never doubted an order, never cared about anyone except himself.

He wrung out the bandanna that kept the sweat from his eyes, and kept waiting. He decided he preferred working alone.

Five minutes later, his partner made the kill. Both squads had prepared routes to their rendezvous, and Snake successfully led them all to ground, still alive.

 

*

It was 0630 when the squad returned to base; they were debriefed by Kasler, who received their success with cold satisfaction. (It was _always_ cold in Kasler's office - cool and hissing, much like his old codename, and there were some dreadfully implausible rumours about that too).

Snake hadn't slept much on the way back, but he had something more important to catch up on, so he got himself breakfasted and cleaned up a bit and then went to look for him. He found Fox in their usual training room - doing stretches while staring wordlessly at the door. Snake had been expected. He received no words of greeting, no commendation from his superior for successfully fucking the world up a little bit more than it had to be - just a nod and a twist of his friend's lips.

He rushed through his warmup, because could tell that Fox was needing this - he was looking for a fight and then some. He was thin and untidy, and there was no warmth left inside his eyes. Perhaps this had been happening gradually for weeks, and it had taken the mission to make him notice. But Fox had never acted so hostile before, not to anyone and certainly not to him.

Fox seemed to move like a frayed rope under tension; half taut, half unravelled, and snapping a thread at a time. They grappled and Snake _tried_ to look inside what he was doing, to fight the way Fox wanted them to, but he couldn't see anything in it except fury. If this had been any other soldier, Snake would have have thought him close to collapsing inwards with despair. But it was Gray Fox, and his most desperate moments were his most deadly. How much rope did he have left, now?

He fell to yet another unusually vicious takedown, and he had to ask the question, however intrusive it was - his throat was bruised to pulp but he choked the words out anyway. "Would you just tell me what's wrong?"

Fox froze, and released the hold in an instant. It was like when he awoke from a bad dream - the way his eyes flashed while he caught up with where he was and what was real and what was just the conjurings of his mind. He dropped to his knees, and put his hands to Snake's shoulder, gripping tight and probing for damage. Like he was trying to put things back the way they'd been. "Snake... I'm sorry."

He had rarely heard Fox apologise for anything, and only ever to him. He looked up into his face, and saw guilt again, guilt Snake didn't want or need and feared would eat the man alive one day. "Well, don't be." He winced at Fox's touch - tendon pulled, maybe, whatever, it was nothing. But his friend usually hurt him with more care.

Fox was staring at the mat with dead eyes. "You want to stop."

"Goddamn, Fox, no. I just -" He wanted the past to never have happened. He wanted the future to never happen. He just wanted this to _be_. "Just tell me what the hell's up with you." He sighed. "I want to know." _Because I care about you like I've never cared about anything..._

His friend's eyes met his. "I'm running out of ideas, Snake," he said softly. "I've got exactly one left, and I don't like it. But...I either do it, or I stop believing in myself for good."

Snake nodded. _You're Gray Fox, and if you stop believing in yourself you may as well be dead. And I can't ask you what it is. Can't make you tell me, not when you've told me your name._

He could feel his own name close to Fox's lips again, so he caught them in a kiss. Fox responded as if he had to steal his breath to keep from drowning.

 

*

David drifted into wakefulness, and the space beside him was cold. Not unusual. He could feel Frank pacing about the room - he heard nothing, no booted tread or brush of clothing, but he felt the rhythmic to-and-fro of the air, and could smell the man's scent as he passed near to him. No music tonight. He opened one eye to a slit, and found the space was dimly illuminated by the office's desk lamp - the door between the two rooms was halfway open. And there was Frank, naked, arms folded behind his back, striding about like a caged animal.

He walked a few more tight circuits, then vanished into the adjoining room. David heard the flick of a lighter, and a few seconds later, he caught the smell of cigar smoke.

David knew he should get up - try to distract Frank or talk to him or soothe him into sleep or _anything_. But he couldn't move. The rational part of him was telling him that it was alright, that Frank lighting a cigar didn't mean there was anything wrong with the world. He'd taken Big Boss's stash because no one else had wanted to touch the old man's possessions - he was just usually too kind to smoke them when David was around. The most of him was cowering under the press of memories. The thudding footsteps. The sun above the fortress. The voice in his ear and the hands pushing him down and -

A whispered curse caught the edge of his hearing. Snake twisted his head to look through the doorway, and he saw Fox sat leaning back on his desk chair, cigar resting against one bare knee. He was turning the dials of his transmitter.

"_La-li-lu-le-_fucking_-lo_. Fox speaking." His voice was quiet and husky with smoke. "Of course not. But that doesn't matter, does it? You know why I'm calling." Snake closed his eyes, the better to feel every word Fox said. Of the other voice, he caught nothing but low static. "No. It's been twenty-five years, asshole, why do you _think_ I won't give up?" He had _never_ heard the man speak with such emotion. "Now tell me what you know."

"You can stop playing dumb. I've been asking a lot of questions. I've put out a few good feelers, I've tapped all the right lines, and I've got nothing except a file of don't-knows. No one's seen him walking, and no one's seen his corpse. So I realised that if I really wanted to find him, I'd have to bite the bullet and talk to the only person in the world who would care as much as I do. Because I'm the only person in the world who you don't fool." Frank gave a grating chuckle, a humour devoid of all feeling. "See, the difference between me and you is that I have always fought for what I believe in and you _never_ have. So if we strive for opposing ends, then I've a damn good guess about where you truly stand."

Another laugh. "Yeah, there's a reason I didn't contact her. Ask me to my face and I might tell you. Now talk." The static seemed staccato-fast - "You've got away with more reckless things. Now tell me - everything."

This silence was longer than the rest.

"..._Snatcher_ project?" Fox sounded mystified. "I'll be there - I could remember the way blindfolded. Warn your mooks not to make any...sudden moves. And -" he drew on the cigar - "I would thank you for this, but I know you too fucking well. I know your MO, and I know where you stand, and I know you'd do anything to keep up the appearance of a...patriot." The word was spat. He heard Fox's knuckles rap against the table. That wasn't right, Fox did _not_ make nervous gestures, because he was never fucking nervous. "You're going to betray me, aren't you?"

"So you're going to turn me in, and tell yourself I forced your hand with one little phonecall? Fine. Do it. They'll never catch me, and I've nothing left to lose." _Nothing..._ "Leave her the _fuck_ out of it or I _will_ punish you." His voice was pure winter. "Go on. Laugh. But if you drag her into this I am going to hurt you. You're a fool and a coward and you think there's nothing you value that I can destroy, but you are wrong. I know what I'm going to take from you. And -" Fox's voice cracked, " - you are going to miss it like he misses his right eye."

There was a heavy _crunch_, and Snake guessed the transmitter had just met the corner of the desk.

He heard drawers opening, being thrown to the floor, paper snatched and scrunched, another brief barrage of swearwords, and then silence, silence save for the scratching of a pen.

 

*

It was still cold. He didn't know why he was awake again, but he was, and everything felt empty, and - what? - there was something digging into his ribs.

There was no light, but he didn't need any to tell that he was alone.

He climbed out of bed, knowing he should have said something, done something. He turned the lights on. Then the office lights. The window was open, and the room was trashed - curtains ripped, paper shredder upturned on the carpet, chair in four jagged pieces, motes of ash scattered everywhere. He'd kept frozen still, through all this? How had he not moved? His hand flew to his neck, wondering if Fox had fucking tranquilised him, but there was no sign of it. Why the fuck had he...?

He ran back to Fox's bed, looking for a dart or some other sign that - _No._ The machete was half-under the bedclothes. He'd been lying on it earlier. And there was a piece of paper tied about its hilt.

 

> _My friend,_
> 
> _It is time for me to say farewell to you. You - you more than anyone - know that FOXHOUND is no longer capable of the loyalty it had before. My mission no longer allows me to remain here, and should I ever meet a FOXHOUND agent again, I will be their enemy._
> 
> _I can't tell you everything. To break a web of coercion one must start with a single cut - the rest will unravel in your hands. But I'm tired of you not knowing the bare truth about yourself, when I knew it from the moment I first saw you._
> 
> _So know this: Big Boss is your father. He did not intend it and he did not want you - this was a violation of his will and of his DNA. You were created for live for a purpose that he opposes with all his will. It did not suit him to tell you while you were under his command, but I know that he would want you to hear it now. He believes in liberty, and without understanding where you came from you cannot become free._
> 
> _You will always have my friendship and support, both because of who you are and because of everything you have done for me. And, David, I If there was anything else I should have told you, the moment for it has passed._
> 
> _I am Gray Fox no longer. I am nothing. This knife was everything I have and everything I have ever been, and I leave it in your hands._
> 
> _-Frank Jaeger_

 

There was a small mirror on the wall by the door. He stood before it, and covered his left eye with one hand, looked upon the lines of his jaw, cheekbones, orbits. Remembering another face, a face creased with age blood pain rage war pain -

His hand fell to his side, and curled into a fist.

He read Frank's words again, committing them to deep memory, and then swallowed the letter a fragment at a time.

 

*

He could hear raised voices as he approached the Colonel's office, but he didn't even try to listen. He just rapped against the door with the hilt of the machete; they hushed, and the door opened, and Kasler stared at him, as he stood to attention with the blade in his hand, and shot a look at Campbell that would've knocked a lesser man dead.

It wasn't his place to ask what they'd been arguing about, but he could guess. He waited there silently, just inside the door, Kasler fixing him with a sad frown, Campbell resting his weary head on one hand, the clock on the wall ticking toward 0430. No bullshit questions; they all knew. Maybe knew before he'd got there. Eventually he stepped forward and laid the weapon on Campbell's desk.

Kasler gave a rasping cough. "Snake, we received a secure transmission from the CID three hours ago. They're arriving at 0500 to take Jae - to take Gray Fox into custody."

"Frank Jaeger," he said flatly. Kasler shifted his feet. Agents don't have names. "How secure?" No one replied. "I'm going with 'not secure enough'."

"When did he leave?"

"I don't know. Sometime between midnight and when I woke up just now." 'Just now' meaning over an hour ago. Call it 'loyalty', if you have to. Call it nothing. Call it tears.

"Did -" the Colonel's voice was unsteady, "Did he leave a message?"

"No." His voice shook over the lie. He didn't give a good goddamn if they called him on it.

They didn't, and he grabbed the machete, was halfway out before Campbell said, "Dismissed, Snake. Get some rest."

He looked back, thinking _like hell_, but what he said was "Why didn't you tell me?" _Because you knew. I know you knew. You never fucking looked at me without thinking it. I know that now._ Campbell, to his credit, looked ashamed. Kasler's lip curled, and a breath of cold air filled the room. That was answer enough - obeying orders, no loyalty, no belief in themselves or anyone else - and he left without another word.

 

*

He felt like a stranger in his own bed. Catnapping on the battlefield was one thing, but back here it hadn't occurred to him to separate belonging to FOXHOUND from falling asleep beside Frank. He felt like a stranger in his own _body_, couldn't sleep, just lay in his bunk feeling like he was breathing through a mask of ice. His heart was a thousand free-floating pieces scattered through his chest like shrapnel.

Every so often he heard someone walking by his door - a footstep here, half a word there. A restless hush. He felt it pacing up to a culmination. His teeth ground together, tasting it. Leopard was tossing and turning - probably only pretending to sleep, priming an arsenal of intrusive questions to ask him in the morning - but David kept perfectly still.

Eventually, he heard a soft scraping at the door. Something had been pushed under it. He could already guess what; Frank - his mind ached at the name - had lent him the nose for machinations, and perhaps he was now developing an instinct for fate.

He picked up the briefing folder and read it by the flame of his lighter. The cover said _OPERATION TRACE X021_, and the first page simply read: "Your mission is to locate FRANK JAEGER [former FOXHOUND operative with codename 'GRAY FOX'] and use all necessary force to apprehend or to eliminate him."

 

*

An hour later, he was nothing but a folded sheet of paper in a bunk and a set of tyre tracks headed east through the mountains. They were said to be impassable, but he'd sneaked out of tougher spots before.

 

> _Colonel,_
> 
> _No. No, no, fuck no, I expected fucking better of this from you, and NO._
> 
> _You, I, and FOXHOUND have just spent the last year trying to move on from Outer Heaven, but if none of us can learn anything then all we're doing is running away from it. So learn this: you DO NOT ask someone to betray their own mentor. You do not tell someone to destroy something they value above all - all that does is leave you with an agent who values nothing, and you should be thinking now about how fucking dangerous that might be._
> 
> _FOXHOUND was supposed to be about loyalty. Not loyalty to America, or to justice, but to ourselves. That's what he always told us. And he was a filthy fucking traitor but I'm thinking he had more loyalty in him than I do. I sure as hell don't have enough of it to go gun down Gray Fox. I don't even have enough to say this to your face. So fuck this, I'd rather be a CIA shark than a FOXHOUND snake._
> 
> _I quit,_
> 
> _Solid Snake_

 

**END**

_("We were fighting bare-handed in a minefield.")_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you've made it this far, thanks for reading! Some discussion of this fic &amp; the areas of canon it delved into developed [here](http://community.livejournal.com/mgs_slash/486998.html#comments), if you're interested.


End file.
